Sorry for the ambigous title.

I wanted to say that i hate when other gamers spoil you the plot of a game and then claim that they are allowed to because it's old.

For instance, recently i was playing a game (not on GOG) that's about half a decade old. I asked people to explain something to me about the prologue of the game, because i wasn't sure whether i had accidentally skipped a cutscene, misunderstood something, or whether the game purposefully didn't explain the thing i was confused about. I clearly stated that i want no spoilers, because i am 5 hours into the game. Then some dude proceeded to mock me and spoiled some parts of the game for me, and when i confronted him about it, he said something along the lines of 'dude, the game's been out for 5 years, do you seriously get angry when i spoil it?'

This kind of thinking absolutely baffles me. Like, right now i am reading Moby Dick (a book released before anyone alive on Earth was born) and i have no idea how it's going to end, except for the fact that the ship is going to get wrecked by a whale. Does that mean i cannot expect people not to reveal the ending to me? I mean, if i knew the plot of every famous novel, i would be a professor at a university.

Similarly, it shouldn't be expected that everyone's already played a particular game just because it has been out for long. Maybe i was in a tight financial situation then, but have got richer and i can afford to spend money on games? Maybe it wasn't my first interest and i only picked it up for a great price that couldn't be refused?

Witcher 3 is still very popular on Steam and GOG 5 years after release. I am going to bet that a major part of these people don't know the plot yet. Does it mean it should be spoilt to them? NO.

So i just wanted to say i am disappointed in many fellow gamers because of it

So you baited them?

I'm not someone who cares about the spoiler meme, but it's always risky to discuss something if you don't want to discover too much, especially in open discussions. I think guides and very specific tutorials or videos are better if you're stuck, for example.You just go to the chapter or section required.

That's why I ended up buying some games I regret buying. I didn't want to research much because I didn't want to see it's contents before I was actually playing it. At some point we must accept a compromise and know that if we research stuff we are going to know more than we possibly wanted to. In the end the game will be enjoyable nonetheless. Ah, in the end of Moby Dick

[spoiler]it was the waiter[/spoiler]

What waiter

I do think there's a point where something is so old and so ingrained in culture that there's no need for spoiler tags. "I am your father!" is a perfect example. However where this line is drawn is super subjective, I've gotten yelled at for spoiling 50 year old movies before. I guess it's always "new" to someone.

I'm a person who really doesn't care much about spoilers anyway, so it's sometimes hard for me to put myself in that mindset and think from that perspective.

It might be just my feeling, but even developers/publishers tend to reveal too much info in their trailers/teasers, to the extend some of the surprises/plot twists are present in them to catch the ever so fickle attention of potential buyers.

And let's not forget all those let's plays/ first hour of the game available before game itself comes out.

Either way, it's not very nice to stumble upon a spoiler ruining your personal experience - be it movies or games, it always sucks.

I'd expect some sort of basic etiquette and state clearly and beforehand you're about to discuss something that may or may not spoil the damn thing for others.

Spoilers? Good guys almost always win. Guy almost always gets girl (and vice versa), stranded protagonist gets saved leaving Wilson or his potatoes behind. There's almost always a resolution that justifies the protagonist's struggle. There are exceptions, as always, like The Departed, Fight Club, The Big Lebowski, Memento and so on.

Stories have been pretty much unchanged for the past 2300+ years. Everyone knew the ending of Titanic, and yet it was sitting at the top of best-selling movies for a decade plus. There's a formula commercial stories follow for a specific reason, and that's to appeal to a wider audience.

It's not so much about the ending or the twist, but more about how it gets there. How the characters therein make you invest in them, and how the storyteller successfully tells a story, no matter how many times you've seen the same story or ending.

There. Everything's spoiled now.

I'm not spoiler sensitive myself; in fact, knowing the big spoiler for Final Fantasy 7 allowed me to notice some foreshadowing of the event from earlier in the game. (The event is still bad from a gameplay standpoint.)

There is one tricky issue I've thought of: Where should the balance between spoiler and trigger/content warnings go? (Should one "spoil" the fact that a game has a rape scene, or should that scene be a surprise (and possibly a nasty trigger for some people)?)

I wouldn't say that's "most" gamers, but if just a single individual like that happens to stumble upon your thread, you don't tend to remember all those who were considerate, because they couldn't prevent that in the end the story was spoilt for you anyway. And on the internet, in open forums, you can count on having to deal with people who are dicks.

Yes, you are riight. Most tropes have been used 10000 times over and over again. Unrequited love, forbidden love, revenge, sacrifice, hatred, rebelliobn against society etc etc all these things have been reused. BUT, when you first start reading a book, watching a movie, or playing a game, you don't know which tropes will be used and in what combination. That makes it intrestesting. For instance, i can say (i haven't finished Skyrim, so pardon me if i am mistaken) that Witcher 3 has a better plot than Skyrim, as while both games reuse known tropes, Witcher 3 does it much better.

Also, the good guy does not always win. For instance,1984

The evil waiter.
youtube.com/watch?v=slp5jnthcrk

The statement is doing the exact same thing you are complaining about in the OP. I never read Moby Dick before, but now it's ruined for me because that quoted statement completely spoiled it.

Actually I [spoiler] don't like the spoiler tag at all [/spoiler]. Unless of course there is [spoiler] specific instructions on a thread or chatroom title:
>> NO SPOILERS << or
>> SPOILERS MUST BE HIDDEN << [/spoiler]
Which are fine, but if you've got a [spoiler] open place to discuss something it's pain to hide ever friggin' possible thing that could spoil just because someone new to it blunders into your comment. [/spoiler] Quite seriously if the game is out for years, then expect the plot to be ruined somewhere if it involves that topic.

My advise? If you're looking for information on a game but don't want the surprise ruined look for specific threads which enforce spoiler tags. Otherwise, just play the dang game already!